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The original was posted on /r/unresolvedmysteries by /u/queenofsmoke on 2024-01-05 17:28:24+00:00.
It is without a doubt the strangest inquiry I have ever been involved with. How a happily married woman could vanish without a trace on a sunny Saturday morning in a busy town centre is totally baffling
- Detective Chief Inspector Colin Edwards
For my second writeup, I decided to go a little closer to home and focus on a case from the UK. The disappearance of Trevaline Evans has been covered a few times on this sub, but there have been some relatively recent and unexpected twists. I've tried to be as comprehensive as possible so hopefully I've had something to add.
Background and Build-up
There is very little information available online about the earlier life of Trevaline, who was born into the Davies family on 6 September 1937 in Llangollen, Wales. Llangollen is a small, picturesque town in Denbighshire fuelled by farming and tourism; she was to live there all her life.
In 1958 Trevaline married Richard Evans. They had one son, a police sergeant also named Richard. The younger Richard tragically died of a heart attack in 1999 while in his 30s, leaving behind wife Anwen and sons Huw and Owen.
While Richard's occupation has been difficult to uncover, Trevaline herself was in the antiques business and the family were comfortably well-off. Her shop Attic Antiques - opened in 1989, just a year before her disappearance - was located on Church Street near the town centre, bordered by the River Dee on one side and the busy A5 road on the other. Becoming an antiques dealer seems to have been a lifelong dream for her: collecting antiques had always been a hobby and she bought from a wide range of people, ranging from locals to other dealers to town visitors.
Day of the Disappearance
June 1990 was progressing uneventfully for the Evanses. Trevaline and Richard had bought a holiday bungalow in Rhuddlan, a coastal town about 40 miles away; they spent a couple of days renovating it together, but while Trevaline - now 52 - returned to Llangollen on Wednesday 13 June, Richard stayed behind to continue the work.
On Saturday 16 June, Trevaline opened Attic Antiques at her usual time of 09.30 am.1 She had driven the couple's blue Ford Escort to work and parked 200 yards away. It was a sunny summer day and the morning was busy - around 25 friends and family are reported to have entered her shop, and Trevaline behaved normally, making plans to meet a friend for dinner that night.
At around 12.40 pm, so estimated because she had spoken to a friend at 12.30 pm, Trevaline placed a note on the shop door stating that she would be 'BACK IN 2 MINUTES'. This was her standard practice when taking a lunch break, and she appears to have indeed proceeded for lunch, being seen by multiple witnesses buying an apple and banana at 1.00 pm on High Street before crossing to nearby Castle Street. Whether she returned to her shop afterwards is not clear. Although a banana skin was later found in Attic Antiques' bin, the time it was eaten was impossible to confirm.
The last confirmed sighting of Trevaline was at 2.30 pm that afternoon by someone who knew her well, walking near her home on Market Street. There are two further unconfirmed sightings: a woman matching her description was seen five minutes later walking out of town in the direction of Corwen, a neighbouring town, along the A5 and beside the Riverside Park by the Dee. Then at 3.45 pm, a woman resembling Trevaline was seen walking into Park Avenue, further along the A5, from the direction of the river.2
There are no more sightings of Trevaline, confirmed or otherwise, from the day of her disappearance. The shop remained closed all day, forcing customers who purchased items from the storefront boxes to put money through the post slot. By 6 pm, long after she was meant to have returned, her family initiated a search. Still in the shop were her handbag, jacket, and car keys - the car was not moved from where she had parked that morning - and some fruit and flowers given by a friend, which she had intended to bring home that night.
With no sign of her, Richard reported her missing at around 11 pm that night.
Initial Investigation
The police investigation was among the most extensive in North Wales's history. Every household in Llangollen was interviewed, and scores of others in the neighbouring town as well. 330 statements were taken, over 1500 interviews were conducted in a 12-mile radius of the town, and almost 700 cars eliminated from the inquiry. Searchers combed through the mine shafts, caves, River Dee and Llangollen Canal; missing posters were plastered around the town; and Richard offered a £5000 reward for information.
Initially, the best lead appeared to be the presence of a 'well-dressed man' who had been seen with Trevaline in the days before her disappearance. A local noticed her speaking to this man near her shop on the morning of Thursday 14 June; they were reported to have been in each other's company again the next morning. He was described as wearing a navy suit and carrying a black briefcase. This seemed promising enough that an artist's sketch was drawn up and circulated. By 2001 however, when the case was reopened, the sketch was no longer considered accurate. It had failed to generate any leads.
For the next few years the police continued to pour resources into the case. Each tip was followed up, no matter how unlikely. Sightings were reported from as far away as London, France (looked into by Interpol) and even a remote town in Australia. None were her. In 1992, the woodland of World's End near Llangollen was searched on the encouragement of a medium, and canal banks were searched with sniffer dogs the following year after a woman contacted police with the 'overwhelming feeling' Trevaline could be located there. Unsurprisingly, neither tip bore fruit.
Suspects and Serial Killer Links
With no evidence and no hope, Trevaline was declared legally dead in 1997. In January 2001 however the case was reopened in the belief technology had advanced enough to solve the case, and this time suspicion fell on Richard. Although Trevaline had been described as 'happily married' by Detective Chief Inspector Colin Edwards in 1992, local gossip was possibly less positive. Rumours of an affair on Trevaline's part were apparently rife, including with a man who had left her £10,000 in his will. Linda - an ex-girlfriend of Trevaline's brother Philip Davies, whom she met two days after the disappearance - stated that Trevaline's marriage had not been happy, particularly after she had received the inheritance.3
Perhaps more damningly, at least one source states that a witness placed Richard in a pub in Llangollen at around 2.30 pm, soon before her final confirmed sighting; based on this, it would seem he had in fact returned from Rhuddlan that day, but did not report Trevaline's disappearance to the police until much later that night. (Note that other sources maintain Richard was in Rhuddlan, seen by witnesses, until that night). Now 72 years old, he was arrested in June 2001 but subsequently released without charge. He never remarried and died at Wrexham Maelor Hospital on 27 December 2014, aged 83, outliving both his only son and - most likely - his wife.
The 2001 reinvestigation also stalled, but the case was examined once more in 2010 on the 20th anniversary of Trevaline's disappearance. In September 2011 the police announced that they were considering a link to Shropshire serial killer Robin Ligus, who by that point had been found guilty of three murders after being tried for four. This was ruled out in January 2012 - one reason possibly being that all his known victims were male and he did not attempt to conceal the bodies.
A third suspect who has been considered is serial killer Christopher Halliwell, who is serving a whole life sentence for the murders of Becky Gordon in 2003 and Sian O'Callaghan in 2011. He was working in North Wales at the time as a window fitter and a witness placed him in town on 16 June 1990, but this line of inquiry is seemingly not being pursued.
Unexpected Updates
In early 2019, brothers Andrew and Lee Sutton contacted the police with an unexpected lead for the then-29-year-old case. The men - based in Wrexham and Kinmel Bay respectively, in northeast Wales - stated that in February, they had acquired information suggesting to them that Trevaline had been murdered and buried beneath Rhuddlan Golf Club. They had then requested permission from the club to conduct an underfloor inspection on 14 March, and claimed that their special camera revealed the presence of skeletal human remains including a hand and skull. They further claimed that the images were verified by a forensic expert.
Acting on the tip, soon afterwards the police began an excavation at 11:00 am on Tuesday 19 March 2019. Despite X-raying the floor of the club's bar area, and leaving an officer stationed overnight while the work was underway, nothing was found. The brothers however remained insistent that their images showed a body present, going so far as to file a formal complaint about the police's handling of the matter. They maintain that the body was removed in the intervening five days between their investigation and the start of the excavation, and also state that they have received 'threatening phone calls'. A window in Andrew's house has also apparently been smashed.
In...
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